Dive Details

Location

Date

Sunday 1 April 2018

Time

7:44am - 9:27am

Details

My birthday dive! It's been a few years since I got to go for a dive on my birthday and The Leap had to be the site to dive. Conditions had been good of late and The Leap was great yesterday. It was also the first morning after daylight saving ended which meant it wasn't as early as the clock suggested.

The tide was quite high when we got in so we jumped in from the shelf. There wasn't much swell so I had to slide down the wall a bit. Mike lost his compass on entry and looked for it but couldn't find it. We eventually descended and started swimming to the sand line. I was using the compass on my Shearwater Perdix and it was telling me we were heading at around 60°. It seemed more like north to me. (I found out later that as I had changed to time on the computer for the end of daylight saving I needed to recalibrate the compass as it was showing around 60° for north.) We arrived at the sand line at the low rocks with sponges right at the overhang where "Clyde" normally hangs out. The visibility was around 15 metres and there wasn't much surge. The water temperature was around 19°C.

I looked under the overhang for "Clyde" but I couldn't see him. We did find two other weedy seadragons between the two low rocks.

We headed on towards The Steps. We spotted another weedy seadragon on the sand just past the rock after Bent Stick Rock.

Mike got to Southern Cross Rock before me and was photographing a pygmy pipehorse on the side when I arrived. I swam around and located the black painted anglerfish. I pointed it out to Mike after he'd finished with the pygmy pipehorse. I looked for pygmy pipehorses and found the one Mike was photographing as well as two others. I think I didn't find one from yesterday but I found a new one.

I swam on to Seadragon Alley and found a weedy seadragon near the start. I got to the area where I'd seen the juvenile weedy yesterday and initially couldn't find it. I looked around and eventually spotted it in the kelp.

At the end of Seadragon Alley I looked for the red Stigmatopora sp. pipefish. There was a lot of kelp in the area but I managed to find them under the kelp. They were moving around quite a lot and not staying in their alga.

I stayed on the sand line and swam towards Big Rock. I spotted another weedy seadragon about a third of the way from the pipefish to Big Rock. I looked for ghostpipefish along the way but spotted none.

After Big Rock I looked for the pygmy pipehorses at the base of the rock below Hand Rock. I found the whitish male but not the female.

I swam on to Square Rock and found one of the white male pygmy pipehorses. I had caught up to Mike and from here we swam towards the shoreline to the white/pink red-fingered anglerfish that Daniela found yesterday. It had moved a bit from yesterday but was still easy to find.

We swam back to the rock where the one-eyed female White's seahorse has been. I pointed her out to Mike and then went back to Square Rock and the white male pygmy pipehorse.

Mike left me and I continued on my own. I swam past New Basket Star Rock and had a quick look for red pipefish in the red algae.

I continued on to Little Big Rock. I found the white female pygmy pipehorse behind Little Big Rock and a cryptic one on the rock above.

I swam on to the yellow red-fingered anglerfish and had a good look in the area for the grey red-fingered anglerfish before ducking back to Little Big Rock and the white female pygmy pipehorse.

I then headed for the boulders checking out the rocks on the way for anglerfishes. At the boulders I ascended to 5 metres and started my safety stop while swimming to Split Rock. I finished my safety stop at Split Rock and then swam underwater right to the exit. The high tide and low swell made the exit easy.

Buddy

Mike Scotland

Seas

Slight

Visibility

10 to 15 metres

Duration

103 minutes

Maximum depth

21.0 m

Average depth

14.0 m

Water temperature

19.2°C

Dive Profile from Citizen Hyper Aqualand

Tides at Botany Bay AEST

Note that tides at dive site may vary from above location.

Low

2:43am

0.33m

High

8:53am

1.73m

Low

3:05pm

0.33m

High

9:18pm

1.72m